H.P. Lovecraft (full name Howard Phillips Lovecraft) was an American writer of weird fiction, horror, fantasy, and early science fiction, best known as the creator of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born on August 20, 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island, he spent most of his life there and died on March 15, 1937, at age 46.Lovecraft came from a once-comfortable family that fell into financial hardship. His father suffered a mental breakdown when Howard was three and died in an asylum. His mother was overprotective and later institutionalized. Plagued by poor health as a child, Lovecraft received irregular schooling and never finished high school or attended college, though he was largely self-educated through extensive reading in science, astronomy, chemistry, and literature.He began writing early, influenced by Edgar Allan Poe. For income, he worked as a ghostwriter and revisionist while contributing original stories to pulp magazines like Weird Tales. His tales emphasized cosmic horror—the terror of humanity’s insignificance in an indifferent universe filled with incomprehensible alien entities known as the Great Old Ones. Iconic works include “The Call of Cthulhu,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” He invented fictional New England settings like Arkham and the forbidden tome Necronomicon.Lovecraft briefly lived in New York after marrying Sonia Greene in 1924, but the marriage ended in separation. A reclusive, eccentric figure with outdated racial and cultural prejudices common to his era, he maintained a vast correspondence with fellow writers. During his lifetime, he gained little recognition or financial success and died in poverty from intestinal cancer.Posthumously, his work exploded in popularity. Today, Lovecraft is regarded as one of the 20th century’s most influential horror authors. His ideas shaped modern horror, games, films, and literature, though his personal views remain controversial.
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